Bill and Cathy McArthur on the Road 2004: 7

      Sunday, February 8 was a non-driving day. Bill arose at 5:30 AM and finished off number 6 of the travel journals and cut a CD for later uploading to the Internet. We had a city tour of Vera Cruz which started at 8:00 AM. The first stop was the Grande Café de Parroquia, a huge coffee shop. Their specialty is a Lechera which is a café con leche wherein the hot milk is served with a dramatically high pouring by the server after the customer bangs on the glass with a spoon. Bill had two large ones and was set up for the day. Breakfast was pretty ordinary, but it was an interesting place. The tour continued with a bit of browsing time along a row of kiosks which would not do any bargaining. Then we went to the town square (zócalo) and wandered around for a while. We tried to make a couple of phone calls, but weren't successful in getting through. The next stop on the tour was the island fortress, San Juan de Ulua, which was built in the 16th century out of coral. This was not a good thing to do to the coral reef of Vera Cruz, but it made for a beautiful building. The fortress held some prisoners at times in its history and had its own version of the "bridge of sighs" (see our Venice trip). We found out that the concluding action sequence of the movie, "Romancing the Stone", was filmed at the fortress. We concluded the tour with a stop at a Walmart Supercenter which wasn't too far from our campground. Upon return, Cathy and Bill did some chores, ate lunch in the camper, and then walked to an Internet Café. Bill uploaded number 6 of the travel journals and then upgraded the Computing Doc website so that there would be room for subsequent chapters. The whole group went to dinner at the same restaurant we went to the night before for a meal included in the tour. We all picked up laundry after dinner. We got to pay $17 for ours and felt that the price was about twice what it should have been. We had paid $20 earlier in the day for a thorough washing of our camper and car. Since the minimum wage in Mexico is $4.20 per day, this group of entrepreneurs did very well for themselves in a day and a half. We did some organizing for tomorrow's early departure before heading to bed. 

    Monday was a long travel day (300 miles). Our "tail gunner", Duane, stayed behind with one of the motor homes that needed repairs. After breaking camp, we had a pre-travel briefing at 7:00 AM and then moved out of the campground. We traveled over a lot of very rough road during the trip and dodged many potholes along the way. Ironically, we had to pay tolls 5 times to drive on the roads, with some of the tolls running as high as 35 dollars for a motor home. The views along the road were interesting as we passed through pineapple fields. Along the road were vendors selling pineapples, mangos, and cocoa. We arrived at Parq Tabasco at around 5:00 PM. We setup camp in a paved parking lot with lots of room for us to spread out. After we unhitched and set up our camper, we drove Pete and Phyllis to Sam's Club. We used the ATM to replenish our funds which had been depleted by tolls and gas expenditures. With the short range of our XTerra, we had to refuel twice on the drive. After some shopping, the four of us went to Rodizio's Restaurant, which features 16 kinds of meat and all one can eat of it. Bill talked to the waiter about just getting the salad bar, but the other three of us enjoyed the variety of meats. To add to the excitement of the day, we got lost on the way back to the campground. Bill had to talk with a police officer to get directions. The problem was that Bill only understood the rudiments of the instructions, so we had to drive around a bit to find our way back. Pete had bought two new batteries for their rig, and faced some installation work. Bill got a shower in the camper and we retired fairly early. We could hear the usual cacophony of howling dogs as we went to bed.    

    We arose at 6:00 AM on Tuesday and ate a leisurely breakfast. Bill "ground" the coffee with a ziplock bag and sandals as hammer and anvil. The coffee was ground a bit too coarsely, but the coffee was OK anyway. We had our travel briefing at 8:30 AM and hit the road for Isla Aguada. We had some interesting driving with a lot of traffic in Villahermosa as we worked our way out of town. The roads were generally good all day as we drove 137 miles. Around noon we passed through an agricultural inspection as we passed from the state of Tabasco to the state of Campeche. Our inspector made us pop our camper so that he could look into it. He was very polite and even helped us to pack it down again. As we neared our destination, we had some gorgeous sea views. The weather was clear and the temperature was in the high 80s and low 90s. Our campground was just at the back of a nice beach. We were set up and walking the beach by 3:15 PM. We took orders for ice and made a run to the Pemex station for 5 bags of ice and sodas and beer. Happy hour for our group was from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM. Afterward, Bill, Cathy, Rick, Blanche, Joe, and Kathy went to dinner at a little restaurant in the village adjoining the campground, "Restaurante Familiar Puente". We had no luck asking for directions while we were walking, but as soon as we hired a couple of motorcycle cabs we were magically delivered to a restaurant which was closed. A quick conference with the cabbies got the place opened and we ate a simple, but good dinner there. We returned by those moto-cabs also. Rick, Joe, and Bill arranged a morning fishing trip and then we found that Duane had returned with the repaired rig. It was a beautiful evening as we retired. 

    Bill was up by 5:30 AM on Wednesday to get his fishing gear together. Bill, Joe, and Rick met the boat captain, Manuel, on the beach in front of the campground at 7:30 AM. We fished at various points of the Laguna de Terminos. We caught a bunch of sea trout and had a great morning out on the water. There was a fresh east wind which kept us cooled off in spite of the burning sun. We had no complaints! Manuel had asked for 800 pesos and we gave him 1000 pesos, so he had a good day too. We arrived back at the beach at a bit after 1:00 PM. The afternoon was made for relaxation. We did a few chores and errands, but taking it easy was the popular activity. Our group had a hamburger cookout at 4:30 PM. Joe, Kathy, Rick, and Blanche prepared fish tortillas with the catch of the day. There's nothing like fresh fish. A good number of us gathered on the beach for another awesome sunset. After dark, the campground settled down. No one had to rush to get organized for the morning, because our pre-travel briefing for Thursday was scheduled for 9:00 AM. 

    Thursday morning began with a nice sunrise over the water and a leisurely departure from the campground. We all felt that the campground at Isla Aguada was especially nice. We only had to drive 100 miles to our Club Nautica campground south of Campeche and those miles were right alongside of a beautiful Gulf shoreline. We arrived at the new campground in 95 degree heat and had no shade as we had in the last campground. We did have a big swimming pool, a beach, a meeting area in a big Tiki hut and commodious restroom/shower room facilities, including a small gym. After a sweaty campsite setup, we ate lunch in the camper and then took a quick look around the grounds. We attended the staff margarita party at 3:30 PM and then took off for the town of Campeche. We were in search of a food store, but it took an hour of searching the city to find one. The Chevraui store that we found was huge, but had a disappointing selection of things that we were interested in. As we tried to return to the campground, we found that our road along the Gulf was blocked off for a parade. We figured out how to go inland in the town and go around the problem. We only used our XTerra's compass to solve the problem. We joined Joe, Kathy, Rick, and Blanche to finish off the fish catch with tacos and salad. The fish was still excellent! It rained very hard while we were in Campeche and when we brought the rain back to the campground. We tried out the nice shower rooms after dinner. 

    Friday was a hot day on the Yucatan peninsula. After breakfast, Bill tried some fishing on the campground's pier. Some fish were splashing around, but Bill wasn't able to land any. Meanwhile, Rick and Blanche had gone out in their inflatable boat with motor and were able to catch Snook and Pompano by trolling. There was a laundry pickup in the morning for an afternoon delivery. We went with Larry, Nancy, and Miles to Campeche in Larry and Nancy's truck. Parking was quite difficult in the central area. We called our daughter Alex on a public telephone and caught up with some family news. We tried to call our son Bill, but weren't successful after a couple of tries. We walked for a couple of hours along the water in the heat of the late morning, stopping at a Pemex gas station for some cokes along the way. We had no competition for the use of the walkway because most people (and animals) are too smart to spend that much time in the sun when it's hot. We met with our crew and Joe and Kathy for lunch at Restaurante Marganzo in the historic district. We enjoyed a couple of seafood dishes with Mayan spices. After lunch, we all went to Sam's Club for some shopping and then to the market that we couldn't find the day before: Saint Francis of Assisi Supermarket. Who would think of naming a market that way? We must have driven by it 5 times on Thursday without recognizing it as a store. We drove back to the Club Nautica. At 5:00 PM we boarded a bus for a city tour. We stopped at one of the town's fortresses, the historic San Roman church, and the historic district. We saw the beginning of a "coming out" ceremony for a 15 year old girl in a church in town center. The bus went up on the hill behind the city for a good panoramic view. Then we drove to one of the bulwalks of the old city walls for a tour and a light show. We learned a lot about the history of Campeche during the very entertaining event. We got back to the resort after 10:00 PM, tired but happy.

        Bill and Cathy